A few days ago, never mind how many precisely, I was flicking between breakfast TV channels desperately searching for something that resembled actual news (I personally don’t regard You Tube clips of animals being humorous as belonging in that particular category) when I stumbled upon a local sports segment.

The two hosts proceeded to speak for about five minutes on the implications and complications that had arisen from a recent Canucks pre-season game; injuries picked up, players in and out of form and, of course, the inevitable goalie reference.

They then turned their attention to the upcoming crucial Whitecaps game against Real Salt Lake, to which the total sum of their insight amounted to “it looks as though the roof will be closed for that one”.

Regular readers will no doubt be thinking that such depth of knowledge outstrips pretty much anything they read here, but it was still a timely reminder that the media landscape is about to make a dramatic change.

It was always going to be like this of course, with the NHL season in general (and the Canucks in particular) looming on the horizon like a giant beast gushing hyperbole, cliché and, for the want of a better phrase, “general shoutiness”, and the trick for the Whitecaps was never going to be to slay the awakening giant; the trick was always going to be to prevent the giant from swallowing them whole

And they couldn’t have done much more to achieve that than they have already.

It’s hard to think of a game at BC Place this season that hasn’t been exciting on at least some level and going into the last five games with something still to play for is probably as much as most of us would have asked for at the beginning of the season.

The problem is that the signs and wonders from the terrific run of results that the team put together in the middle of the campaign raised expectations to such a level that a failure to make the playoffs (even by the slenderest of margins) would leave a melancholy air around the club that may prove hard to shake off.

That’s why the game on Saturday is so important; a victory would not only keep the Whitecaps’ playoff hopes alive but it would also keep the mood among the supporters buoyant as well as keeping ticket sales floating along no matter what the beast to the east in Rogers Arena may or may not do.

Anything less than a victory though would likely see a few faint-hearted fans abandon ship (and that would be a shame) but at least the Whitecaps have steadily established a solid core of support as this year’s turbulent voyage has unfolded and they, no matter what, will surely stick around until all the drama’s done.

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